It is known in the art to evaporate disinfection liquids, for example hydrogen peroxide, to a greater or lesser extent by means of a metered application onto a heating unit and to supply the vapor produced in this manner to the sterilizing containers, for example bottles or cups, if necessary after mixing it with hot air (DE 37 28 595 A1, U.S. Pat. No. 5,879,648).
It is further known in the art to capture the temperature of a heating unit for evaporating liquids by means of sensors and to control the heating elements of the heating unit, for example electric heating cartridges, in this manner (WO 90/07366, DE 197 04 639 A1). Although maintaining the desired temperature of the heating unit is improved in this manner, it is not possible to determine whether the predetermined amount of liquid was indeed supplied and evaporated. This is particularly disadvantageous if the vapor is used for sterilizing containers for food products since requirements in this area are strict and range from an exact control of the sterilization process to keeping records of all pertinent readings for every single container.
It has also been proposed to measure values such as temperature, humidity, vapor concentration, flow or pressure by means of sensors arranged in a sterilization chamber for containers attached to an evaporator (EP 1 368 086 B1). Such monitoring is very complex and costly and of limited informative value with regard to the amount of evaporated sterilization agent.